Comments on: GST and fuel excise: A taxing argument

By: Monte

Monte — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Excuse me but I was under the impression that the money going to into govt was the peoples money not the governments and that the governments job was to provide services and infrastructure with the revenue gained through taxes not to be an investment bank running a $20 billion surplus with our money.

Now I know people are going to counter that lowering the surplus would have a negative impact on inflation and cause it to rise.
But if you understand that the largest driving factor in inflation right now in our economy is fuel prices.
It is affecting everything we buy, everything we need, from the basics of food to the luxury items.
In other words cut fuel prices you lower the inflationary pressure on the economy even when you cut the surplus.
In fact I would say cutting fuel prices should be the corner stone of bringing inflation under control not interest rates or surplus money.

This is a new world market not one that the old tried and true methods of bringing inflation down will work on. Not unless you pressure the economy to such an extent that you drive us into a complete recession and then with the cost of fuel continuing to rise you risk stagflation which is one place no one wants to every go.

By: Tom McLoughlin

Tom McLoughlin — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Hold your horses Tony, there is always space for facts and truth against popular MYTH. Sometimes it just takes a little time to do the sorting.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Don’t forget that the NSW government already love the tax on a tax by charging stamp duty on the GST inclusive price of land (where GST is applicable to the sale).

By: Tony Papafilis

Tony Papafilis — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

WHy is “populist” used as a negative term in a democracy? Surely in a system where majority is meant to hold sway, populist shoudl be standard. The fact that people are attacked for expressing publicly popular views reflect the anti-freedom, undemocratic, dictatorial attitude of most of our political industry. Socialists, and budding dictators all.

By: David Mendelssohn

David Mendelssohn — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Of course, the increasing price of petrol will bear harshly on rural people and people, many of them not well off, who dwell in outer metropolitan and regional centres and I, for one, feel for them. But how cruel for Rudd and Nelson to maintain the delusion that cheap petrol can be maintained. And how utterly stupid of Joe Hockey to even think, much less say, that petrol will always be cheaper under a Coalition Government. The experience of other countries which have artificially kept food prices down should teach us the folly of kowtowing to misplaced senses of entitlement. The lid can be screwed down for a while, but then it blows and, instead of a series of graduated price rises, to which people can adjust over time, they are faced with the price doubling or tripling or even quadrupling. This is inevitably what will happen with petrol prices unless Rudd, Nelson & co start showing some leadership on this issue and start educating the Australian motorist to the reality that petrol is never going to be cheap again because it is running out.

By: Russell

Russell — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

The whole debate is a load of BS. John Howard elected to put gst on petrol which was then and is now, double dipping. At say $1.54 a litre the GST would appear to be $0.14 a litre. Removing the GST makes economic sense in terms of inflation, but not in terms of a govt. who wants to outdo the Liberals budget surpluses. Inflation at higher levels than the Reseve Bank Fat Cats Board thinks is appropriate is inevitable given inflationary pressures of oil and interest rates. Removing the gst on petrol is justified -it was punative in the first instance and is sustainable as a non monetary anti inflation measure.

By: JamesK

JamesK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

The Rudd government is Populist Numero Uno Party and anybody who suggests otherwise has there head in the sand or are blinkered by prejudice. For once they have been gazumped by Nelson and the only real question is who is sillier: Nelson or Rudd’s response. The only sensible response would have echoed Howard’s just 6 months ago(or Keating’s 12 years before)…all a bit too close to revealing the sham of Rudd’s election campaign for what it was. Apart from repealing Workchoices (the real reason he was voted in), Rudd has been doing little else than public relations grandstand with seemingly the help of Nelson and the Liberal party (and the left wing liberal elite or so they think). Labor seem to be bereft of meaningful policies or ideas and that certainly was not what they were peddling 6 months ago!